On Tue, Aug 14, 2018 at 5:08 AM, Abe Dillon <abedil...@gmail.com> wrote: > The whole point of a programming language is to bridge the gap between > machine code and natural language (in Python's case English, as with most > other languages). It's to make reading and writing code easier through > abstraction, not to create ivory towers through the use of esoteric jargon. > It's not supposed to make a cool kids club for people privileged enough to > study CS in college. At least that's not my goal.
The whole point of a car is to make driving easier through abstracting away the internal details of petrochemical propulsion, but if someone says "I don't want to know about 'gears' or 'brakes' or any of these technical terms", you wouldn't want them driving on the roads you're on. There is a certain level of comprehension that you can't avoid. (If you don't know anything about how to use a car, you can still ride in one, but you can't drive it; and you don't need to understand about anonymous functions in order to operate a computer, but you'll need them to program effectively.) > As someone who has taught Python professionally, I can say that there is a > strange mental block regarding lambda expressions. Pretty much every student > I've had has struggled with lambda expressions, even those who grasp > similarly complex constructs like decorators with ease. This includes > students who learned english as a second language. I can only attribute that > to the word 'lambda' being confusing as hell. As someone who currently teaches both Python AND JavaScript professionally, I can say that there is a strange mental block regarding anonymous functions, and it's nothing to do with the word "lambda". In JavaScript, anonymous functions are created with the word "function" (same word as is used for declared functions), and there are just as many points of confusion as there are with Python. ChrisA _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list Python-ideas@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
